Free/cheap 3d models of chess pieces?

Anyone know of free or cheap 3D models of chess pieces? I'm sure I could lathe a pawn without much hassle, and in the long run I'd like to learn Blender or Meshworks but in the meantime I'd prefer to drop in existing chesspiece models rather than create something mediocre in a hurry.

So far I've found:
1) 3D models on turbosquid for $125 the set
2) apparently Joseph Strout put somewhat reasonable chess pieces as examples on a MeshWork CD - I haven't looked into that yet, not sure if those are available if I buy Meshwork electronically.

Any suggestions? This is for a game I may write; they don't have to be ultra-low poly counts, but they shouldn't be ultra-detailed either (although depending on the format they might be adjustable.)

If you want the pieces in OBJ or whatever form you can have them. They aren't UV mapped in any particular fashion and they also aren't that low poly. Possibly the other two creators of that thread may give theirs away for free as well if asked.

Thanks for the offer- sounds promising! I tried to sign up for a Renderosity account so I could view the messages but there seems to be some kind of delay or problem with emailing me my registration info. I'll keep trying, but if you'd be okay emailing the files to me that would be great too. I'm going to try to import them into Unity, but I can hopefully convert OBJ to 3ds via Blender.

UV isn't really a problem, I'm sticking to black and white pieces for this early version of the game, and there won't be many pieces on-screen at once.

Those all look very nice. However, given that this game is still in the proof-of-concept phase, no idea if I'll take it shareware or commercial, and I'm in a big hurry (Unity trial expires in two weeks, contest deadline in 5 weeks) free 'n easy is what I need now.

Maybe I'll waste an evening modelling a pawn and one or two other simple pieces, that should suffice for now. Or maybe I'll hear back from Zecaric. I'll keep TurboSquid in my back pocket should I get serious about this or another game (although who knows, if the game progresses I might try to attract someone with real artistic talent to the project.)

It's funny, my Google searchs showed that making chess pieces is a very popular assignment to give students who are learning 3D modelling. But noone ever bothers to publically release their models when they are done. :-)

Yep. Apple provides a chess app that has a 3D interface derived from glChess. You can grab the source code for it all from the About dialog. The chess pieces are all generated by code in the file MBCBoardViewModels.mm it's fairly nice code (most pieces are produced by lathing) and should do you fine. But if you are using Unity you might need the models, *just* possibly you might be able to export these.

MattDiamond Wrote:Anyone know of free or cheap 3D models of chess pieces? I'm sure I could lathe a pawn without much hassle, and in the long run I'd like to learn Blender or Meshworks but in the meantime I'd prefer to drop in existing chesspiece models rather than create something mediocre in a hurry.

So far I've found:
1) 3D models on turbosquid for $125 the set
2) apparently Joseph Strout put somewhat reasonable chess pieces as examples on a MeshWork CD - I haven't looked into that yet, not sure if those are available if I buy Meshwork electronically.

Any suggestions? This is for a game I may write; they don't have to be ultra-low poly counts, but they shouldn't be ultra-detailed either (although depending on the format they might be adjustable.)

There is a large model collection on the content CD of Carrara Studio, which now sells for under $50. http://www.thebest3d.com/carrara - I don't know off the bat if there's a complete chess piece, but I'd guess there either is or there's a quick way to make some. There is I think a horse model, and there are of course great modeling tools in Carrara.

I'll look for complete chess pieces.

added: found it. The 'Misc 2' category of model collection from the Carrara Studio 3 content CD has a complete chess set. I'm doing a rendering and will post it on http://www.thebest3d.com/carrara/chess

My current models were generously donated by KittyMac (Rocco), who took time off from his own OMG Cup entry to whip up some models for me. I'll revisit this if I decide to develop my game further after the contest.